Raven's Bride (7 page)

She had stopped shaking every time she heard a footstep she didn’t recognize, and her sense of being stalked by wickedness and haunted by terrors she could not see was lessening day by day.

Charlotte dashed in, panting, her normally tidy hair blown all to pieces by the wind, and grabbed Anna by the hands. “Come. Now. You cannot stay indoors on such a glorious day.” Judging by the strength in her grasp, she was in no mood to be thwarted.

Anna let herself be dragged outside. It was good to feel the sunshine on her face and the wind in her hair again. Charlotte was so carefree and so high-spirited, and the day was so perfect, that Anna felt the last remnant of her ghosts leave her.

The air was warm and hazy with the heady fragrance of mid-summer. On such a beautiful day, what could one be other than happy?

Charlotte was setting a punishing pace, and Anna struggled to keep up. “Where are we going?” She panted as Charlotte pulled her along, showing no sign of stopping.

Charlotte gave a wicked grin. “I shan’t tell you.”

Anna was intrigued. “So, what is this present, then?” she asked, with as much breath as she could muster.

“I shan’t tell you.”

She pulled her hand out of Charlotte’s and flopped to the ground for a rest. “And why did Lord Ravensbourne buy me a present anyway?” she asked suspiciously.

Charlotte laughed. “If you don’t know the answer to that one, you’re a simpleton. You’re young and beautiful, and he has rescued you twice over. What could possibly appeal to any man more than that?” And she took Anna’s hand again and set off once more.

Anna mulled Charlotte’s words over in her mind all the way ’round the side of the manor house and to the door of the stables. As soon as she was inside, though, she forgot all about them in her surprise.

“Beauty,” she cried, as she caught a glimpse of the gray mare she had fallen in love with at the market. She hurried over to the stall and stroked her neck. The mare whinnied with pleasure and nibbled gently on her fingers. “How did you get here?”

“So, do you like your present?”

Anna turned around. Charlotte’s face was wreathed in smiles. “The mare?” she asked, hardly daring to believe it was true.

Charlotte nodded. “She’s a pretty animal, isn’t she? She’s a bit like my Duchess that Tom bought me when I outgrew my old pony.”

A sense of unease pervaded Anna’s thoughts. “But I am not Lord Ravensbourne’s sister. I am only his cousin by marriage. We do not even share the same blood. He cannot make me such a present.”

“And why not?” asked a deep, masculine voice.

Anna turned to face Lord Ravensbourne himself. He stood in the doorway to the stable, silhouetted against the sunshine. His jacket lay over one arm, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. His shirt was open, nearly to the waist, and his chest and forehead both glistened with a sheen of new-formed sweat.

Her conscience stirred uncomfortably. As much as she would have loved to accept the proffered gift, she searched around for a suitable excuse for refusing. “I…I have nowhere to keep her,” she stammered. That much was true, at least. The dower house had no stables attached to protect the mare in foul weather, and they had little land on which she could graze.

“You shall keep her here.” Lord Ravensbourne gestured at the empty stalls. “We have room enough for her.”

“And I…I shall have no time to ride her.” This was slightly less true. Besides tending to her mother, working in the garden, and reading books borrowed from her cousin’s library, she had few duties.

He lifted his eyebrows expressively. “No time?”

“My mother needs me.”

“Then you shall have to rise earlier, before your mother is awake, and take your exercise then.”

In her mind’s eye, Anna pictured herself riding Beauty over the fields in the freshness of the early morning, the dew still shimmering on the grass, the sun barely making its presence felt in the crispness of the early morning. She desperately wanted to accept Lord Ravensbourne’s gift. She would never look on Beauty as her own—her conscience wouldn’t allow that—but to have his approval to ride the lovely mare…

She closed her eyes, the better to see her dream.

“So, shall we consider the matter settled?”

Anna’s eyes shot wide open again. “But…”

“But what?”

She lowered her eyes and said the first thing that came to her mind. “But, I have no riding habit…”

Charlotte made her way towards the stable door. “Come, cousin, don’t be such a ninny. I have five riding habits and I cannot wear all of them at once. You shall have whichever one you like best. We shall go and ask Mary to alter one of them for you this afternoon. The purple one, I think. It will match your eyes.”

Anna stayed put. “But…”

“I shall enjoy riding with you early in the morning, just as the sun gets up, when all the rest of the world is asleep,” Charlotte announced, on her way out the door. “Come on. We’ll have to hurry if Mary is to have time to alter your dress by the morning.”

“But…”

The corners of Lord Ravensbourne’s mouth were twitching in a smile. “Uh-huh?”

Anna stamped her foot. She did not like to be laughed at when she was in deadly earnest. “But I have never been on a horse before. I cannot ride.”

“Then I will teach you. Tomorrow at dawn.”

The sun was barely up the following morning before Anna had risen. She washed in the pitcher of cold water on her armoire before dressing herself in the deep purple riding habit that Charlotte’s maid, Mary, had altered for her the previous afternoon. She looked at herself in the glass. The dress was now the perfect length, just skimming the floor, but it was still a little too snug in the bodice.

She lifted her arms above her head to test the fit. The material was stretched over her breasts, but the seams held firm. Satisfied, she laced up her boots and tiptoed down the hall and out the front door.

The grass was still wet with dew, which sparkled in the first weak rays of the early morning sun. Anna hurried through the wet fields, her heart pounding with excitement and apprehension. Today was her first riding lesson. She could not wait for the moment she was sitting on the mare, galloping through the fields, feeling the wind in her face as she rode along.

But however early she was, Lord Ravensbourne was there first, standing in front of the stable door, the two horses saddled and bridled and waiting. He had been so kind to offer to teach her, she didn’t want to keep him waiting.

She picked up her skirts and ran the last hundred paces. She was panting when she reached him. “Am I late?”

“Not at all. The horses have only now been made ready.” He handed her the reins of the gray mare. “Shall we start the first lesson?”

There were only two horses ready—hers and his. “But where is Charlotte? Has she gone on ahead?”

Lord Ravensbourne threw his head back and laughed a rich, deep laugh. “Charlotte? Surely you did not expect her to rise from her bed this early in the morning without being forcibly ejected from it?”

“But she said…”

“Charlotte is training to be a fine lady. Her notion of true gentility is to lie abed every morning until noon drinking chocolate, then staying up late dancing whenever she can. Thankfully, she has not much opportunity in the country to become very dissipated or, to tell truth, she would put the queen and all her ladies-in-waiting quite to shame.”

Anna shuffled her feet together. She didn’t want to offend her cousin, but the situation did not seem right. She was sure her father would not be happy were he to look down from Heaven and see her now. “I should not be out riding with you alone. Mama gave her permission reluctantly, and only then because I assured her that Charlotte would be riding with us.”

“Are you afraid of me?” Lord Ravensbourne’s voice was low and gentle.

Was she afraid of him? She thought about the question for a moment. She was not afraid he would hurt her—or even touch her without her permission. But, in the depths of her heart, she was afraid he might make her want to touch him. That thought scared her most of all. “Not very.” She lifted her eyes to his face to search out the truth hidden in his eyes. “Should I be?”

“Do you believe I would try to hurt you like the men in the marketplace?” The very thought of it seemed to darken his face and draw his brows together in a forbidding black line.

She shook her head emphatically. “No! You would never hurt me like that.”

His expression unbent a little. “Then what are you afraid of?”

She hardly knew what to say. “Your eyes,” she ventured, after a moment’s thought.

“My eyes?”

It was hard to explain. “You…you look at me sometimes.”

He laughed. “You are very beautiful. Who would not want to look at you?”

In her mind, Anna saw the squire leering at her exposed bosom and calling her his little pretty. Even now, far away from him and his threats, the mere thought of his hands on her body made her sick to her stomach. She clenched her teeth together. “I do not want to be beautiful. And I do not want people to look at me.”

“Doesn’t every woman desire to be a lodestone to the eyes of men? Doesn’t every woman wish and pray to be thought a beauty?”

She shivered. At times, she had wished to be red-haired and marked with the pox. Her face had brought her nothing but trouble and shame. “I am not every woman.”

Lord Ravensbourne reached out towards her chin with his hand.

Startled by the sudden movement, she instinctively flinched away from his touch. Immediately she had done so, she wished she could recall her movement, but it was too late. She could see in his eyes that he knew full well that she was afeared of him touching her. The damage had already been done.

He sighed and dropped his hand back to his side, his eyes radiating the hurt she had unwittingly caused him. “Never be afraid of me, cousin. Beautiful as you are, I will swear, here and now, that I will never touch you without your leave.”

Anna felt some of the tension uncoil from the pit of her belly. “You promise?”

“I swear it. On my word as a gentleman.” He unlooped the bridles from a hitching post by the stable door. “And now for lesson number one. Mounting.”

He moved to Anna’s side to demonstrate what she needed to do. “One foot in the stirrup,” he instructed her, “and then swing yourself up and on to the saddle.”

Anna did as he had ordered, and managed to seat herself very creditably for a complete novice.
She would be a pleasure to teach,
he thought, as he took her mare by the bridle and started to lead her into the nearby field. She would be a natural on horseback.

Anna beamed at him from her perch on top of the mare. “That was not too difficult,” she said, a smile in her voice.

“As I gentleman, of course,” he said, with a dry smile, “I should have offered to lift you into your saddle.”

Anna, perched on top of Beauty, gave him a saucy grin. “And why didn’t you? Am I, a mere cousin, not worthy of your politeness?”

He knew very well why he hadn’t touched her. He didn’t trust his control over himself to put his arms around her waist and lift her onto her horse without trying to steal a kiss from her. Or taking advantage of his superior strength and position to hold her body against his. He had made a vow not to touch her—and it would be as well not to let himself be led into temptation and have his honor put to the test.

He decided to turn her question into a joke—the witty repartee the king and his courtiers prized so highly. “You needed to learn how to get on your mare’s back by yourself. You will not always have a tame gentleman around to mount you.”

He knew before the words were out of his mouth that he had gone too far. Anna’s smile had been a friendly one—not an invitation to tease her and flirt with her—but his court-acquired habits were hard to unlearn.

As he knew it would, Anna’s grin died, and she shot him a reproachful look. “If you were a gentleman,” she said clearly, “instead of an idle courtier with wickedness on his mind, you would not embarrass a lady with your wicked language.”

He swung himself over his own horse—a fiery bay gelding. “Please accept my apologies. I spoke but idly.” Anna was no court miss to be entertained by scandalous innuendos and
bon mots
. He must remember that, and let her innocence guide his behavior.

“An idle word makes a door for the devil to enter in by…” She stopped all of a sudden, and he turned to see what ailed her.

Her face was a fiery red. “I am s…sorry,” she stammered. “I spoke out of turn. It is just something my father used to say to me. I was not trying to correct you.”

“But if I am in need of correction?”

“Then you must look to God and your own conscience to be your guide.”

There was silence between them for some minutes as the two of them picked their way carefully over the fields towards the river. This feeling of being tongue-tied in the presence of a woman he wanted to impress was new to him. She would not appreciate the type of speaking he had cultivated at court. She was too religious for that. And he had no idea how a Calvinist or a Quaker or any other religious fanatic would court her.